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Coletti dominates sprint race in Barcelona

Monegasque driver extends points lead

Stefano Coletti has claimed his second win of the season with a mature drive after a storming start for a dominant victory in today’s sprint race in Barcelona, controlling the pace all the way to lead home Robin Frijns and Felipe Nasr.

The win was set up at the start: poleman Johnny Cecotto made a decent getaway but Coletti’s was even better, getting alongside the front man ahead of turn one before going all the way round the outside for the lead. Behind them Tom Dillmann stalled, but Frijns snuck inside while his rivals tripped over each other, giving the Dutchman a clear run to the first corner.

Cecotto tried in vain to fight back but Coletti had the measure of the Venezuelan, who lost grip for just long enough to allow Frijns and Nasr to blow by, while Jolyon Palmer, Alexander Rossi, a slow starting Kevin Ceccon and Rio Haryanto slid in behind.

With everyone needing to concentrate on maintaining their tyres to the end of the race most of the field were content to keep their powder dry and wait for their rivals to make a mistake: eventually the damage to Cecotto’s car showed as a train formed behind him, and it was only a matter of time before he dropped back.

Palmer’s pressure finally paid off and he was through on lap 20, although the Venezuelan damaged his front wing against the Briton’s right rear tyre, slowing him further: Ceccon tried the same move but ran wide, Rossi locked up going inside Cecotto at turn one and allowed Haryanto through, with Sergio Canamasas and Daniel Abt thrown into the mix with just two laps remaining.

The Spaniard looked to have a clear run on Cecotto but had the door slam shut: with a slowing Canamasas on one side of the track and a squeezed Abt on the other, Haryanto had nowhere to go but over the Spaniard’s rear wing, the second time in the weekend Canamasas had to retire without it, while seemingly half of the field were tripping over each other to find a way to the line.

Out in front Coletti had eased his pace from a gap of over 4 seconds to lead home yesterday’s victor Frijns by 0.6 seconds at the line, with Nasr on the podium again 7 seconds behind them. Palmer had a quiet run to fourth place, with Cecotto the next man to see the chequered flag just ahead of Rossi, Ceccon, Abt and Fabio Leimer.

The win saw Coletti stretch his points haul to 93, ahead of Nasr on 76 points, Leimer on 54, Frijns moving up to 37 points with Sam Bird on 33 and Palmer on 31, while in the teams’ championship Carlin lead Rapax by 107 points to 101, ahead of Racing Engineering on 64, Hilmer Motorsport moving up to fourth with 56 points, one point ahead of RUSSIAN

Barcelona – Sprint race

Driver

Team

1.

Stefano Coletti

Rapax

2.

Robin Frijns

Hilmer Motorsport

3.

Felipe Nasr

Carlin

4.

Jolyon Palmer

Carlin

5.

Johnny Cecotto

Arden International

6.

Alexander Rossi

Caterham Racing

7.

Kevin Ceccon

Trident Racing

8.

Daniel Abt

ART Grand Prix

9.

Fabio Leimer

Racing Engineering

10.

Jon Lancaster

Hilmer Motorsport

11.

James Calado

ART Grand Prix

12.

Sam Bird

RUSSIAN TIME

13.

Mitch Evans

Arden International

14.

Sergio Canamasas

Caterham Racing

15.

Stéphane Richelmi

DAMS

16.

Simon Trummer

Rapax

17.

Kevin Giovesi

Venezuela GP Lazarus

18.

Daniel De Jong

MP Motorsport

19.

Rene Binder

Venezuela GP Lazarus

20.

Marcus Ericsson

DAMS

21.

Adrian Quaife-Hobbs

MP Motorsport

22.

Jake Rosenzweig

Barwa Addax Team

23.

Nathanaël Berthon

Trident Racing

24.

Rio Haryanto

Barwa Addax Team

25.

Julian Leal

Racing Engineering

26.

Tom Dillmann

RUSSIAN TIME

Fastest Lap : Tom Dillmann (RUSSIAN) – 1:33.337 on lap 14

source: GP2 Series

Dams

DAMS fails to convert a brilliant qualifying performance

The weekends follow one another in a similar pattern for the reigning 2-time GP2 title winner. Unfortunately not the right one, though! On Friday the black and yellow cars locked out the front row in qualifying, but this brilliant performance was followed by two results outside the points as in Bahrain.

Marcus Ericsson and Stéphane Richelmi made a quiet start to the weekend on Friday and finished free practice among the mid-field runners. After that they showed their true pace in qualifying and Richelmi put his car on provisional pole until he was pipped in the dying seconds by his team-mate. The DAMS drivers were the only ones to break the 1m 29s- barrier and they were over 4/10s quicker than their nearest rival, Felipe Nasr.

After such a performance the team was expecting great things for race 1. But yet again Lady Luck didn’t smile on the French squad. Ericsson made a good start, built up a 6-second lead and then came in to change his tyres on lap 7. Unfortunately, he rejoined among the back-markers and the Swede’s car was harpooned by Sam Bird causing its retirement. Richelmi made an average start; he then got back into his stride and after his stop he nursed his tyres. But he was victim of Tom Dillmann, Bird’s team-mate’s mistake, who collided with him. He managed to restart and saw the flag in fifteenth place.

On Sunday, DAMS’s jinx struck again! Despite good starts from fifteenth and twenty-second places, the French team’s drivers suffered excessive tyre wear in the mid-field pack and had to make do with fifteenth (Richelmi) and twentieth (Ericsson) positions. All runs of bad luck come to an end and hopefully this will be the case on the Monaco roller-coaster in two weeks.

François Sicard, Managing Director: “Yet another very frustrating weekend after the delight of seeing the cars in DAMS colours lock out the front row followed by the huge let-down because of the results. The car and the drivers are obviously quick, but we don’t always manage to put all the elements in place. Our pit stops weren’t beyond reproach for once, and collisions lost us points in the first race. After that it was very difficult to fight back on Sunday. Now, we have to do everything we can to avoid these problems and convert our real level of performance into results.”

Marcus Ericsson: “The weekend got off to a fantastic start with pole position and the double with Stéphane. It was great for the team and for us both. I made a very good start in race one and opened up a gap. But a minor incident during my pit stop meant that I rejoined in the traffic and Bird hit me. There was nothing I could do. It was a shame as I was well on the way to giving the team its first win of the year. The race on Sunday wasn’t great either, especially as the tyres suffered very rapid degradation in traffic. I’m determined to get my revenge in Monaco!”

Stéphane Richelmi: “I was delighted with my place on the front row both for myself and for the team. It was the only successful moment of the weekend and I didn’t even score a point! In Malaysia and Bahrain I was hit, but here I was defending my place while leaving Dillmann enough room and I was handed a penalty! A lack of success, an accumulation of small glitches and the results don’t follow. We have to continue to work on qualifying, above all for Monaco where it’s even more important than elsewhere. But we can build on our performance and that’s encouraging for the coming races. Bad series don’t last and I hope that’ll be the case in Monaco where I adore the circuit and the race.”

Next race: Monaco 24-25 May

source: dams.fr

ART Grand Prix

coming soon

source: art-grandprix.com

Arden

GP2 Series 2013, Arden International, Barcelona, Spain

Mixed Catalan weekend for Arden International

Team news

It was a progressive weekend for Arden International, as the GP2 Series landed in Barcelona for the first of the European rounds.

The track was dry in time for the lunchtime practice session, following rain earlier in the morning and soon heated up as most drivers set their times early on. Johnny set his best time in the first three laps and maintained third place for the rest of the practice session. Mitch ran long, setting three fast times, the first placing him in eleventh when the session ended; both drivers using the hard compound tyre. As Johnny was really unwell, hit by food poisoning, that was getting worse throughout the day.

Mitch Evans

“In the Practice session, we ran in some caliper seals which made the brake pedal peculiar in the first half of the session, when tyres are fresh. I ended the session p11, but there was more in myself, to be more comfortable on the brakes. I had no complaints and we didn’t make any changes for qualifying….”

Johnny Cecotto Jr

“It was a very difficult weekend for me. Friday morning I woke up I was feeling very ill, with a fever and bad stomach. However, we had a very competitive free practice, although I could do only 3 laps because of my physical state…..”

source: arden-motorsport.com

Racing Eng.

Racing Engineering and Fabio Leimer just miss out on the points today at Barcelona.

Following their problems in yesterday’s Feature Race both of the Racing Engineering drivers were starting from down the grid for the 26 lap Sprint Race with Julián Leal in 13th and Fabio Leimer in 18th. Once again the weather was good at the Circuit de Catalunya with the morning start meaning a lower track temperature of 25°.

Fabio made a fantastic start as the lights went off and as the cars exited the first corner the Racing Engineering car was already up to 13th, and he gained another place at Turn 4 when he passed Evans for 12th. Fabio was now on the gearbox of Canamasas and looking for a place to pass and move closer to a points scoring finish. By lap 5 Fabio was just 0.7s behind the Caterham car and he was pulling away from Evans as both men were involved in an intense battle with the cars from 8th to 12th separated by just two seconds.

By the halfway point of the race, lap 13, Fabio was still trailing Canamasas with the two cars very evenly matched on lap times and, with overtaking being very difficult on the Barcelona track, all Fabio could do was to continue to apply pressure and try and force the Caterham driver into a mistake.

As the race entered the closing laps Fabio found that constantly running just behind another car was affecting his tyres and he slowly fell away from Canamasas. With just 4 laps remaining the battle for the minor places became very fraught as the cars got in each other’s way and the gap from 5th to Fabio in 12th was just over three seconds and with one lap to go contact between Haryanto and Canamasas caused several cars to leave the track promoting Fabio to 9th, just one place away from the points.

Julián made a reasonable start and at the end of lap 1 he was lying 15th and battling hard with Ericsson and for the next few laps Julián drove very well to keep the Swedish driver behind him. The Racing Engineering driver now began to close on Richelmi and on lap 9 he passed the DAMS car to move up to 14th, the next target for the young Columbian was the Arden car of Evans and over the next few laps he quickly narrowed the gap.

By lap 18 the gap was down to 0.5s and Julián was only just over three seconds behind his teammate in 12th position. As the cars ahead closed up Julián was looking to gain some more positions but with one lap contact with another car forced him off the track and into retirement.

In terms of results it was a very disappointing weekend for Racing Engineering although both Fabio and Julián once again found themselves the innocent victims of other driver’s incidents which badly affected their results in the Feature Race. Racing Engineering will now return to their Sanlúcar de Barrameda base to prepare for Monaco in two weeks’ time.

Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director of Racing Engineering:

“A disappointing weekend as we didn’t score any points though we expected to continue to fight for the top spot after qualifying. Race 2 has been a big “show” and challenge with a different type of tyre degradation from usual. Starting from the back and fighting through the field has not been an easy task for either of our drivers. They worked hard but finished just outside the points. There is a lot of data to analyse from this weekend and we will now focus on the upcoming event in Monaco.”

Fabio Leimer:

“I had a very, very good start today. I gained several positions during the first two laps as I was able to avoid contact with others. In the beginning things looked quite good. But today the tyre degradation was a big challenge for everyone and I additionally had the impression that something was not working well on my car. It’s a pity I finished just outside the points.”

Julián Leal:

“I had regular start and actually lost two positions through the dirty corners. During the entire race I was controlling my pace to manage the tyres, which worked out quite well. I was pushing to overtake Richelmi and after that I was stuck behind Evans trying to catch the group in front. During the last 3 laps it was quite chaotic and I was able to win some positions. But on the last lap in corner 10 I was squashed between two cars and crashed into the wall.”

source: racing-engineering.com

Carlin

coming soon

source: carlin.co.uk

Russian Time

coming soon

source:

Caterham Racing

An action packed GP2 Sprint Race

Circuit de Catalunya – GP2 Sprint Race

Car #14 Sergio Canamasas – P14

Car #15 Alexander Rossi – P6: 6 points

Race length: 26 laps

Circuit Length: 4.655 km

Tyres used: P Zero Orange hard

Weather: dry

Following his bad luck in the Saturday GP2 feature race Sergio Canamasas was determined to score points at his home race, despite lining up 23rd on the grid. Teammate Alexander Rossi also had high hopes for the race starting from the clean side of the grid in third position.

Sergio Canamasas was one of the stars of the race. He made one of the best starts in GP2 history, moving from twenty third to twelfth on the opening lap and then improved further to eleventh place by the end of lap two. He settled into the race and having conserved his tyres early on he pushed with nine laps to go, picking off a car each lap and joining the battle for fifth place. However, his luck ran out on the final lap and through no fault of his own he was pushed wide and made contact with Harayanto who drove over the back of his car, tearing off his rear wing. Sergio nursed his car around the final lap and ended up taking the chequered flag in fourteenth place.

Alexander’s race was slightly less eventful than Sergios, but in the end more fruitful, finishing in sixth place and scoring four points. After the start Alexander was amongst the top seven cars, a group that ran nose to tail for the majority of the race and, having stayed out of trouble and driving consistently, Alexander finally cross the finish line in sixth.

Sergio Canamasas “At this moment I am not feeling that great but I had a good race with lots of overtaking and a great start. I was up to sixth, I tried to overtake for fifth place when I was hit and then Harayanto took my rear wing off.

“It was a tough race but I had a good feeling with the car and it is just so unlucky for me to lose a rear wing in each race. Now I hope I have better luck in Monaco.”

Alexander Rossi “I had one of my best starts in terms of getting off the line but Stefano got an even better one and I lost out on a couple of places.

“In the opening laps the tyres took a little longer than expected to come up to full performance so I managed them as well as I could, expecting the car to improve later in the race but it didn’t. We seemed to have slightly higher degradation than the other cars today which is something we will look at before the next race.

“With the mayhem that happened in the last few laps I am just happy to bring the car home in once piece and score some points for myself and the team. Now I look forward to Monaco which is definitely my favourite race of the year.”

Chief Engineer Humphrey Corbett “What a race! Both drivers were in the points with four laps to go and we may have had both cars in the top six had Sergio not been hit from the rear again.

“Sergio had a fantastic race with an amazing start from twenty third to twelfth and he seemed to have everything under control, having looked after his tyres early on. We are very impressed with his driving and clean overtaking manoeuvres today.

“Alexander lost a few places at the start but remained in a point scoring position, biding his time. He unfortunately flat-spotted his tyres when attempting to pass Cecotto and once that happens it is very difficult for the tyres to come back.

“We still have a little work to do on our race pace but we now look ahead to Monaco and hope Sergio has a bit more luck there!”

source: caterham-racing.com

Barwa Addax

coming soon

source: addaxteam.com

Rapax

coming soon

source: rapaxteam.com

Trident Racing

coming soon

source: tridentracing.it

Hilmer Motorsport

coming soon

source:

Venezuela GP Lazarus

TWO ACCIDENTS ON THE FIRST LAP STOPPED BOTH BINDER AND GIOVESI IN BARCELONA

They deserved more, but Rene Binder and Kevin Giovesi was involved in the first lap in two accidents: race 1 start was very chaotic and both Binder and Giovesi were victims of rear-end collisions that did not allow them to get a good result, despite the excellent race pace that both have been shown.

Kevin was pushed off the track during the first lap and a stone broke his front wing and a radiator, forcing him to retire. Rene was not lucky at all: another driver damaged his car and Rene had to pit during the first lap. Back on track, the young Austrian talent showed his great potential with an impressive race pace , amply demonstrating that he deserved a top 10 or a top 5 position.

Starting at the back of the grid in race 2 is not easy at all, but Kevin and Rene were able to pass some drivers: unfortunately, once again, Binder was an innocent victim of a rear-end collision! P17 for Giovesi and P19 for Binder in race 2 do not make justice to the young couple of Venezuela GP Lazarus, who has proven to have a fantastic race pace and a good potential in Barcelona.

Rene Binder, # 24

“The qualifying session was very challenging, with many cars within a few tenths. My lap was not that perfect: losing a few tenths I found myself in twentieth position. During race 1, at the first corner, I was hit from behind and I had to pit immediately, losing a lot of time. Back on track, the race pace was really good, and we have once again demonstrated that we deserves the points. And if that was not enough, even in race 2 I was hit from behind! I hope that this will not happen again in Monaco, where you have to pay attention to the walls and certainly I do not need drivers who make mistakes behind me… ”

Kevin Giovesi, # 25

“I can say to be satisfied with P10 in qualifying, but I can not say the same of my slow start in race 1. In the first corner I found myself in the middle of the group and I was pushed into the gravel where a stone blew the radiator, so I had to retire when I saw the engine temperatures rise. As a result I started in the last row in race 2 and, you know, starting at the back of the grid is always difficult. So, I’m not satisfied with the results here in Barcelona, but I’m sure that we are competitive both in qualifying session and in races. Now I’m looking forward to go to Monaco, a really difficult circuit, but so fascinating!”